


It Was All Becca's Fault

by AnyoneforteaUS (Thalassatx)



Category: Marvel
Genre: Dress Up, First Love, Gen, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalassatx/pseuds/AnyoneforteaUS
Summary: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes have been inseparable for years, but until Steve has to babysit Becca one afternoon, it was entirely innocent.  Really.





	It Was All Becca's Fault

**Author's Note:**

> Just some tooth-rotting fluff with skinny!Steve, hard-working Bucky, and a sweet little sister.

It was all Becca’s fault. If she hadn’t been five, and if she hadn’t adored Steeb, none of it would have happened. 

George always worked, and Winnie had become a sort of neighborhood mother, advising young brides, helping young mothers, showing them how to do all the things their own mothers hadn’t. So it wasn’t unusual for her to be called away at a moment’s notice. Steve had seen the young boy run up to the Barnes’ front door and had seen him virtually flailing. Winnie was frowning, but she glanced up and saw Steve on his own stoop. “Steve! Can you come here?” she shouted, even as she was untying her apron.

He walked across quickly. “Yes ma’am? Can I help you with something?” Ever polite, Winnie Barnes loved her rowdy son’s best friend, and she knew she could trust him. “Steve, would you be able to stay here for a few hours?” she asked. “Mrs. McGregor has gone into labor, and they can’t afford a doctor. I need to go see if I can help her.” He nodded quickly. “Do you want me to watch Becca?” he intuited. Winnie smiled and patted his cheek. “Please, dear. Bucky is taking a few extra hours because someone called in sick, so he’ll be home in a little while. I’ve baked some bread this morning, so you can go ahead and slice some. There’s butter in the ice box. Just keep Becca from killing herself til he gets here, and you can stay for dinner.”

Steve smiled. “I can do that. She’s a good kid.” Winnie’s eyes widened comically. “If you say so, dear.” She grabbed her hat from the rack just inside the door, and told the young boy to come with her as she sailed out the door and down the street.

Steve came inside and shut the door. The Barnes house always smelled good to him. Winnie was a meticulous housekeeper, despite her wild children, and George smoked a pipe. Add to that the scent of freshly baked bread, and whatever was in the big pot on the back of the stove, and it made for a homey place he could stay in for hours. They didn’t have much, but compared to how he and his mother had lived before she passed, it felt luxurious to him. 

He and Bucky lived together now in the same cramped apartment he and his mother had inhabited. Bucky worked more, and definitely paid the majority of the bills, so Steve insisted on calling it his place now. Bucky just rolled his eyes at him. Steve knew that when Buck came home, if he didn’t find Steve there, he’d swing by here to grab a bite and see if anyone had seen him. In the meantime, he sought out the child he was supposed to be watching.

“Becca? You in the bedroom?” he called, and was answered with a whirling dervish of a girl, all brown curls and eyes like her brother’s racing out to him. “Steeb!” she shouted with delight. “Where’d ma go?”

He gave her a hug, since she had wrapped herself around him anyway. “She went to go see Mrs. McGregor. There’s a baby coming!” Becca’s eyes lit up even more. “A boy baby or a girl baby?” she asked. Steve chuckled. “They won’t know til it shows up, Becca Boo. I think I heard Bucky say Mr. McGregor wants a boy, but you get what you get,” he said with a shrug.

“I want a girl baby!” Becca announced. “I want a girl so I can play with her and dress her up and curl her hair!” Steve grinned. “You should just do that to your brother,” he teased. Becca made an exaggerated face. “I can’t dress up BUCKY! He’s too big! I can’t even play with his hair. He tells ma I’m ruining his haircut.” Steve laughed heartily, and he pried Becca’s arms from him. “Okay, okay,“ he agreed. “You want some bread and butter for a snack?”

The distraction worked and she nodded. She followed him back into the kitchen where he unwrapped the still-hot loaf of bread. Winnie had wrapped it up in a clean flour sack to keep it warm and keep any insects off it. He went to the silverware drawer and pulled out a sharp knife. “Let me cut a couple of slices, and you get out the butter.” Becca retrieved it and he managed to cut two thick slices without mangling the soft loaf too badly. He rewrapped the bread, and washed off the knife, drying it and replacing it back in the drawer, before pulling out a butter knife to spread the creamy goodness. Becca sniffed hard, and smiled. “Ma sure can bake good, huh?” she asked, and Steve nodded appreciatively. “One day, when I get rich as J. Paul Getty, I’m gonna hire your ma just to cook for me!” Becca giggled. “Whatcha gonna hire me for? I’ll be big by then!” He pretended to think for a moment, then brightened. “I’ll hire you to keep all my drawing pencils sharp!” Becca howled with laughter at that, and he felt really content. 

They finished off their bread, and he let her go back into her room while he sat down on the sofa. Winnie had left a magazine out, and he picked it up. He could always use advice on how to clean under your bed, he figured. 

He had just gotten into it when he heard Becca. “Steeb, come play with me!” He frowned a little, but obediently went back to her room. “Look what ma let me have! It’s for play only and I can’t wear it outside that front door,” she pronounced, sounding remarkably like her mother. She had a few makeup containers in front of her. They were obviously almost all gone, just a little rouge left in a pot, some face powder in a compact, and a little container of eye shadow. Steve nodded. “That’s nice Becca. But your ma’s right. Nice little girls don’t wear that.” Becca nodded. “Oh! And lipstick!” she added, producing a tube that she had to turn at least 8 times before he saw the nub of color left. “So will you play with me?”

Steve eyed her suspiciously. “What do you want to play?” he asked her. She smiled brightly. “I want to do your hair!” He self-consciously ran a hand through the blond bangs that were constantly falling down on his forehead. “Okay, you can play with my hair,” he decided. “But no scissors!” She laughed. “Come sit over here!” she gestured to a spot on the floor.

Steve took his spot, and she quickly began running her fingers through it, then pretended to cut it using her fingers. “See, we’re going to make you so pretty!” she announced, bringing a very skeptical look to his face. “Let me get my bobby pins!” She pulled out a drawer and dug through it until she pulled out a couple of bobby pins from the bottom. She then pulled bits of his hair back, pinning them carefully. She only drove one pin into his scalp, so he thought it wasn’t too bad. “Oh yes,” she said, pretending to be a hairstylist. “You look beautiful now,” she pronounced. Steve chuckled and said, “That’s it?” He started to roll to his knees to stand up, but Becca’s hand grabbed his shoulder. “No! Stay here!”

He sighed and settled back down. “Now we have to do your make up!” Steve immediately began protesting. “I’m a boy, Becca! I don’t wear makeup!” She rolled her big blue eyes at him. “I know you’re a boy, Steeb. We’re PRETENDING,” she told him, as if he were the biggest dummy she’d ever seen. “You can wash it off later!” He still wasn’t happy. “But you’ll be wasting your makeup on me,” he explained. “You don’t want to do that!” Becca nodded fiercely. “Yes, I do. Just sit still!”

Resigned, he huffed a sigh. “Okay, but don’t poke me in the eye!” She gave him the same triumphant grin he’d seen Bucky wear after besting an opponent on the schoolyard. “I won’t,” she promised. “But you have to stay still.” First, she powdered his pale skin, and she didn’t even mind that she missed a spot or two. Then she opened the cap on the rouge. “Just a little here,” she said, coloring a circular shaped spot on his right cheek, “and a little more here,” she added, smearing his left cheek. “Now close your eyes!” He closed them, and tilted his head down in shame, but she lifted his chin right back up. “I have to see you,” she explained. She stuck her finger into the eyeshadow, and then drew it across his eyelid. “Huh,” she said. “I think I still had some rouge on my finger, but it’s okay.” She repeated her action with his other eye, then told him to open them. “Blink at me!” she ordered sweetly, so he did. “Aw, Steeb, you have pretty eyes,” she said with a big smile. He playfully fluttered his eyelashes at her, and she giggled. “Now you just need the lipstick.” 

He tilted his head exasperatedly. “C’mon Becs,” he pleaded. “I think this is enough. Lipstick don’t come off easy.” He’d seen how it would blush Bucky’s lips after he came home from a date, no matter how much he rubbed at it. Becca pouted. “But you aren’t ready until you have your lipstick. Ma always says that before we go to church.” She blinked, and he could swear those were real tears gathering in her eyes. “Okay, okay, but just a little! And keep it on my lips, not my whole face!” Her smile was back full force, and the tears instantly disappeared. Was she fooling him to get her way, he wondered, before she was getting the tube out. The color was nice, a deep rose, and she was very careful while applying it, although she didn’t really subscribe to the idea of just a little. Finally, she stood back to survey her work. “I think you’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen!”

Steve laughed. “You sure must see a lot of ugly boys then!” Becca giggled back at him. “Go look in the mirror,” she ordered. “But don’t wash it yet, please?” she cajoled. “We can still have a tea party with my dolls!” He grinned at her. “Okay, but you’re going to have to remind me how to act. I don’t go to many tea parties, ya know.”

She laughed uproariously at that, and began putting away the makeup. Steve stood and stepped around the corner to the sink. There was a medicine cabinet above it with a mirror, and he was surprised when he saw his reflection. He actually didn’t look THAT bad, he admitted to himself. He rubbed his fingertips firmly over his cheeks, evening out the powder and rouge, and then he frowned at the eyeshadow, before licking his finger and carefully wiping away just the excess from the inside corner. The lips were, he pondered, actually nice. He had full lips anyway, and the rose was complimentary to his complexion. He caught his own gaze in the mirror, then he grinned at how serious he had looked for a minute there. He washed his hands of the remnants of the makeup, then dried them. As he came out to go back to Becca’s room, the front door opened. Bucky walked in. “Hey Stevie! Thought you might be over….” He stopped abruptly. “Steve?”

Steve’s own blush flooded his cheeks. “Oh sheesh, Bucky, I was gonna wash it off before you got here! Time got away from me!” Bucky’s amazement turned into a grin. “Did Becca make you,” he asked, gesturing at his own face. Steve nodded sheepishly. Bucky’s grin grew wider. “C’mere, lemme see.”

Steve abashedly stepped closer and Bucky reached out to lift his chin. “Well, ain’t this a look,” he murmured. Becca poked her head out of her room. “Bucky, ain’t he the prettiest boy you ever saw?” Bucky never took his eyes off Steve, and when Steve licked his lips out of nervousness, Bucky seemed to be completely absorbed in it. “Bucky?” Becca repeated plaintively. “Oh, yeah, Becca Boo,” he nodded. “He’s the prettiest boy I ever have seen,” he agreed. Steve flushed, and he yanked his chin back. “Don’t go making fun of me Bucky Barnes,” he warned. Bucky smiled then, and there was a different sort of warmth to it. “I ain’t making fun, Stevie. I just never noticed before.” He winked at him, and his smile turned a little predatory. “Just ain’t ever noticed, but I do now.”


End file.
